Back in 2010 when I was working in Brussels, I undertook a review of the use of Tamiflu at the height of the 'Swine Flu' hysteria. The results of my investigation are available at www.swineswindle.blogspot.com, but in précis the outcome of an analysis of existing medical trials and regulatory reports was that:

Tamiflu was potentially more dangerous than swine flu

Young people were particularly at risk from adverse reactions including psychotic episodes and increased suicide risk

It was not particularly effective in treating A/H1N1

All conclusions also reached by Oxford University after 5 years of study. My list of conclusions did not stop there, however:

The European Medicines Agency extended the shelf life of Tamiflu to prevent political embarrassment to national governments caused by the destruction of £100's of millions of unused medicine

The subsequent widespread use of Tamiflu has been driven by political concerns related to the above

The ability of the A/H1N1 group virii to develop resistance to Tamiflu was accelerated by this widespread use

The stockpiling of Tamiflu was a result of EU policy

UKIP was not alone in reaching these conclusions, but the medical community was reluctant to rock the political boat, despite evidence published by the British Medical Journal. My own response to that is attached below, with the link to it's publication in the BMJ below.

Publicly available information

4 January 2010

I make no claims to be experienced in understanding clinical trials, nor even to have a medical background: I am by training an engineer. However, it was clear as long ago as June that the use of oseltamivir in combating the current 'pandemic' A/H1N1 strain was neither straightforward, nor without an element of risk.

Under the auspices of Godfrey Bloom MEP (Yorkshire & North Lincolnshire) I undertook an analysis of existing publicly available information relating to oseltamivir treatments and arrived at conclusions which, to a layman such as myself, do not differ greatly from those in this report.

Several questions arose from this research which deserved an answer much earlier in the debate. These included:

whether the widespread use of oseltamivir would result in increased resistance as appeared to be suggested by de Jong, Thanh and others (New England Medical Journal, 12/2005) and Dharan, Gubereva, Meyer et al (Journal of the American Medical Association)

Whether oseltamivir was more dangerous than the A/H1N1 it was supposed to treat/prevent, as suggested by the US FDA (Pediatric ADRs to Tamiflu, 2007), Maxwell's Tamiflu and neuropsychiatric problems in adolescents (BMJ) and the work of Rokura Hama.

Whether the rush to use oseltamivir to treat A/H1N1 was related to the imminent expiry of stockpiles purchased in 2005 in the previous 'bird flu' scare which would have lead to the destruction of pharmaceuticals worth £500m in the UK alone.

As someone involved in advising policy on these matters, I was mystified as to why the scientific community could not address these issues at the time and, worse, actively sought to deflect dissent to the prevailing view which appeared to amount to 'unless we all take oseltamivir we'll die of H1N1'. I am perfectly happy to accept that my understanding of medicine may well be at fault in my interpretation of at least some of the studies I quote, but there has always been a significant body of opinion which has questioned both the seriousness of the supposed A/H1N1 pandemic, and the efficacy of oseltamivir as either a treatment or a prophylaxis. For any who are interested, my own analysis was published at www.swineswindle.blogspot.com . My apologies for the title, but I am a journalist and not a medical professional. Yours faithfully, Mark Croucher

Head of Media

Europe of Freedom & Democracy Group (UKIP), European Parliament, Brussels

Thursday, April 3, 2014

With Nick Clegg still insistent that only 7% of UK legislation comes from Brussels, I did a little research.

Using the Official Journal of the European Union, I went through and counted up all of the legislation contained within the 'Legislative' issue of the Journal since the European elections in May 2009. The results were nothing if not predictable.

In a similar period (Jan 2009 to 31st March 2014), the British Parliament at Westminster has introduced 162 pieces of primary legislation (Acts of Parliament) and 14,125 Statutory Instruments (those laws which are introduced either by ministerial diktat or through delegated powers).

Monday, March 17, 2014

A friend of mine this morning drew my attention to an article in yesterday's Sunday Mirror regarding Nigel Farage and Annabelle Fuller which stated:

"We can also reveal that ex-UKIP MEP Nikki Sinclaire – who this week asked Farage why he used public money to pay Miss Fuller – was snubbed for the job his alleged mistress was given.Mark Croucher, who was UKIP’s director of communications between 2001 and 2007, confirmed he interviewed her for a job in the party’s press office. She was turned down because of her “abrasive personality” and Miss Fuller was recruited instead. UKIP insiders say it raises the prospect that Sinclaire asked her explosive question as an act of revenge.The source said: “Nikki has never got over the fact Annabelle was chosen above her to work for the party. She is a woman scorned and that has come back to haunt Nigel this week.”"
In fact, what I actually said was

"I employed Ms Fuller in the UKIP Press Office in 2006 while I was director of communications. We - myself, my deputy Clive Page, and the party chairman at the time - interviewed a significant number of candidates for the position, and the consensus was that Annabelle was by far the best. She was employed solely on her merits as the best and most suitable candidate for the position, and her subsequent performance proved that that was the correct decision.....

Regarding Ms Sinclaire, she was an unsuccessful applicant for the position at the time, just as she was an unsuccessful applicant for my then position, for Clive Page's position, and for a number of other paid roles within UKIP. Her subsequent actions, her on-going bitterness and abrasive personality, her arrest for expenses fraud and her association with members of the far-right including those on paid positions on her current staff have proved that our decision with regards to Ms Sinclaire were correct."

Sinclaire was not interviewed for the position as we only bothered to interview candidates with some ability. There is little point in employing as a press officer a person who could have an argument in an empty house.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

It may be that you are wondering why when a close associate and long time friend of the Prime Minister who works as an aide at No10 Downing Street is arrested for child pornography offences, the only comment by the Labour Party you can find comes from the otherwise nondescript John Mann MP, member for Bassetlaw and a member of the Treasury Select Committee whose concern is solely to be sure there are 'no policy implications'.

All very strange, although it is possibly not unconnected to the allegations surrounding Labour MPs Jack Dromey, Harriet Harman and Patricia Hewitt and their links to the Paedophile Information Exchange organisation while they were working for the National Council for Civil Liberties in the 1970's and 80's. That particular story has been rumbling around for many years now without getting a wider airing until the Daily Mail ran with it last December before going rather quiet on it.

Meanwhile, Patrick Horn - the adviser in question at Number 10 - was informed by Downing Street officials of the likelihood of his arrest on the 12th February, and was arrested in the small hours of the 13th February. It would appear that Downing Street was informed in advance of the arrest, and indeed warned Horn, which gave him an opportunity to resign his position before the arrest occurred. What else it may have given him an opportunity to do is a matter for speculation.

What interests me in all of this is the timing. If Horn was arrested in the small hours of the 13th, he was presumably interviewed that day, and very possibly the following day as well. Newspaper reports state that the police 'subsequently examined computers and offices used in Downing Street by Rock, who was the deputy director of No 10's policy unit'

'Subsequently' in this sense would appear to mean in the days following, ie either on Friday the 14th, or Monday the 17th.

How strange then that on Wednesday the 19th February, the Daily Mail - a Tory supporting newspaper - resurrected it's 13th December story about Labour links to PIE, and ran it on the front page not just that day, but for several days afterwards. I recall that when I read the first and following stories, I was slightly puzzled about several things.

Why now, when there was no 'new' evidence?

When new evidence began to appear, where did it come from? There was little to nothing by way of attribution accompanying the articles

Who was their source for this new information?

Now, perhaps I just worked at Westminster for too long, but I'm a bit cynical about the timing. The Harman/Dromey/Hewitt story continues to rumble on, but all of a sudden the timings look a bit too convenient to be entirely coincidental.

It is certainly strange indeed to discover that despite the arrest of a close ally of the Prime Minister which entailed the search of government computers for child pornography in Downing Street, the best Labour can muster is a statement from an obscure back-bencher and a few words from Tom Watson, who'd make a speech at the opening of an envelope if he thought it would get his picture in the Guardian.

So what did happen? I'm flying a bit of a kite here, but I suspect that someone in Downing Street had a brilliant idea. Say nothing about Horn until asked, but in the meantime get the Daily Mail to resurrect their story from December about Labour front benchers and PIE in the 70's and push it for all it was worth. Need more information to sustain a week's worth of front pages? No problem, we're the government, what do you need?

Now, nobody could think that the Horn situation could be hidden forever - it was only a matter of a couple of weeks, if not less, before someone noticed that he was no longer in Downing Street. But that, of course, doesn't matter. By then, the Labour leadership would - with luck - be embroiled in their own paedophile related crisis, and would be keen to not rock the boat on subjects related to senior officials and child pornography.

I can imagine the assessment when - and indeed if - such a scheme was dreamed up. In the short term, it would cause embarrassment to the Labour front bench while they dealt with the PIE allegations. By the time the Horn story came to light, Labour would not be keen to shout 'senior Tory paedophile' because they would be accused of hypocrisy, having vacillated over Harman et al. This is why the only Labour MPs sticking their heads above the parapet were publicity hungry backbenchers. In the long term, the genius at Downing Street would realise that the two stories would coalesce in the public imagination, party lines would be lost, and the 'they're all the same' mentality of the general public would take over leaving few memories of the specifics. Politicians are already held in such low esteem that that would make no difference, but it would prevent a political advantage - and political capital - being made by the Labour Party.

So, perhaps I am too cynical. Perhaps it was indeed a coincidence that the Daily Mail began pushing this story days after Horn's arrest, digging out new evidence regarding PIE from the 70's and 80's, and felt it was genuinely in the public interest. And perhaps the timing of the Horn arrest and the subsequent admission by Downing Street was motivated by good intentions. But my experience of Westminster is that such coincidences rarely happen.

Thursday, February 13, 2014

The Guardian has this morning gone on the attack over suggestions that the cost of flood damage across much of the UK should be taken from the foreign aid budget. The suggestion was first made by UKIP leader Nigel Farage and subsequently made into a national campaign by the Daily Mail.

The Guardian naturally reels off a list of impressive sounding statistics provided helpfully by those organisations who are responsible for the disbursement of aid. How many children were vaccinated, how many people were provided with fresh water, how many schools were opened. All terribly noble stuff.

But I am reminded of some research I did back in 2001 when I first stood as a candidate for UKIP. The EU's own report on its poverty reduction efforts in Rwanda saw it spend something in excess of $250m over a five year period, and yet the report stated that there had been little impact on poverty reduction, and few wider tangible benefits to report. To put this into context, at the time Rwanda had a population of 7 million, and a per capita income of under $140 and yet giving the equivalent of 4 months wages per person had somehow not managed to make anybody - except those in charge - richer.

The question must be whether things have changed. As things stand now, almost 20% of the nation's GDP is in the form of aid payments. A report by the HRF Foundation - When foreign aid hurts more than it helps - has found that heavy inflows of aid did not materially affect the lives of the vast majority of Rwandans. According to an IMF report, while the richest 20% (predominantly Tutsi) of the population shared over 50% of the nation's GDP, the poorest (predominantly Hutu) 20% shared 10 times less, with only 5.4%. The country ranks amongst the most unequal in the world. The reports authors argue that what such huge tranches of foreign aid have achieved is to ensure that while the nation is broadly peaceful, the repression which lead to the genocide in 1994 between Hutu's and Tutsi's is being reinforced by aid payments which enable the Tutsi minority to cement its position of power, while denying aid to the majority Hutu population. Is this really what we wish to achieve with our foreign aid budget?

And then there is the more obviously undeserving waste. The Daily Telegraph reported in December 2012 on the following:

* £800,000 out of the EU aid budget is being spent on a water park being built in Morocco by the French owners of Center Parcs

* Iceland has received £20 million from an EU fund subsidised by British aid. The funding is to prepare Iceland for EU membership - even though two-thirds of the country no longer wish to join

* a former Lancashire detective turned DfID consultant was given £223,683 for fighting corruption in Jamaica, one of eight consultants paid more than £100,000 for their work

But even when we focus on the alleged successes of our aid programme - which is now inextricably linked with that of the EU - the reality is less than impressive. As the Guardian reports:European aid, in particular, has helped almost 14 million new pupils enrol in primary education and connected more than 70 million people to improved drinking water, since 2004, according to the European commission.
Which sounds good until you recall that the EU aid budget for this year is over £9bn, and it has been at a similar level for some time. If we assume total EU aid over the past decade to be in the region of £65bn (and that is a conservative estimate), this is equal to the combined GDP of the world's 34 poorest countries according to the EU's own index of GDP. Even worse, in many of these countries and those just above them on the GDP table, national wealth is actually falling rather than rising.

The problem is that while committing 0.7% of GNI to international aid makes anyone touched by the madness of government feel all warm and soft inside, it seems to escape their notice that much of that money is simply being poured down the plughole whilst making the lives of the poorest citizens of countries which receive aid worse rather than better. We should not make the mistake of thinking that these are isolated incidents either - you do not have to dig very deeply on the internet to find a wealth of information concerning misappropriated aid payments, such as:

"Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, an independent non-profit organization, suspended US$367 million in grants to Uganda in August 2005, after discovering that $45 million had been diverted to sham NGOs created by local politicians"

Part of the problem is the extent to which the aid agencies have become an increasingly politicised industry. The Guardian quotes Oxfam as saying "that money should be redistributed from the UK's wealthiest population sectors to help alleviate suffering in the sodden flood plains. British bankers had received more than €70bn in bonuses since the onset of the financial crisis – far more than the UK's aid budget, according to a statement by the aid agency". Am I alone in wondering what the one has to do with the other outside of the pages of a Labour Party manifesto? Has Oxfam suddenly decided to run for office? We should not forget that Oxfam itself works in Rwanda, where its own publicity states that "60% of the population subsist on less than $1/day", and yet it is their disbursement of aid which helps to cement that in place. Oxfam states that it is assisting "by organising village sessions on such cross-cutting issues as...gender", a favourite topic - along with climate change - of the pro-Labour former Chief Executive. As head of Oxfam Lady Stocking earned £119,000 in 2012/13. The average salary in the banking industry according to Reed International is a more modest £48,000, while the average salary of a Rwandan Hutu is £120. Is Lady Stocking worth more than 1,000 Rwandans? You decide. It's not as if she has ever worked outside the public sector.

I won't pretend to know what the answer is to the foreign aid question. I think most people would agree that we are right to give it, but probably not in its current form, and that is without mentioning aid given to nations which have space programmes and aircraft carriers or are members of OPEC. That much of what we give is wasted, mis-spent, diverted to inappropriate uses or supplied with political strings attached is beyond question. If we are failing to help those most in need, then why has aid become such a sacred cow?

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

A row erupted in the Manchester Evening News today over the inclusion of three local residents in a photograph used in a UKIP publication. The three residents - Bernard Caine, Irene Lawrence and her daughter Rachel - claimed that the photograph was used without their permission. The article says,

"Mr Caine, who says he has no party political affiliation but on this occasion has picked Labour candidate Mike Kane via postal vote, added: “It is diabolical.”Irene, 67, said she only went to the meeting because her housing association asked her to go."

That Mr Caine should vote for Labour candidate Mike Kane is not entirely a surprise as they were both directors of the Parkway Green Housing Trust back in 2006/7 and worked closely together. There are a host of other organisations which Mr Caine has occupied senior positions and in which he would have worked closely with Kane.

As for Mrs Lawrence, she is far from a stranger to Mr Kane either. She was a director (for 11 years) and chairman of the Willow Park Housing Trust, and also worked closely with Kane for many years, most recently over the building of a skate park on the estate in 2010 - as featured in the Manchester Evening News which ran the story about their 'lack of political affiliations' while relegating the story about vandalism and theft from the UKIP office to a side bar.

It is not of course just Mike Kane that Bernard Caine has worked with. He was also a fellow director of the Manchester Tenants & Residents Federation Ltd with Labour councillor David Royle.

Now, it may well be true that neither Bernard Caine nor Irene Lawrence belong to the Labour Party, although I have my doubts about their innocence in that regard. Be that as it may, what is undoubtedly clear is that in an area where the Labour Party vote is weighed rather than counted it would be almost impossible to reach the chairmanship of a Housing Trust without having the whole-hearted support of the local Labour administration. Such support would hardly be forthcoming unless it was reciprocated, and they wholeheartedly supported the Labour administration.

It may also go some way to explaining why certain Labour activists were telling those who displayed UKIP posters in the windows of their social housing that they were 'their' houses, and they couldn't display UKIP posters their. Are the housing trusts as corrupt as the Labour administration? We couldn't possibly comment. STOP PRESS! :D
Have a look at these two pictures. Is that Bernard Caine - 'local non-political' resident - on the right at a meeting with Mike Kane and Harriet Harman at the beginning of the by-election campaign? The second picture is definitely of Mr Caine, taken at the funeral of Paul Goggins, the former MP where he was widely quoted, not least by the BBC - "Bernard Caine said Mr Goggins was always there for his constituents" - in a strictly non-political sense.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

It was with some amusement that I read in the national media suggestions that Nigel Farage is 'courting publicity' with his visit to the flooded Somerset Levels.

As publicity stunts go, this one is particularly long running. Attached is an article from the Dartford Messenger on the 8th January 2003. You will recognise a (rather younger) Nigel Farage protesting against the building of a housing estate on the flood plains in Dartford which were formerly occupied by the (frequently flooded) Joyce Green Hospital.

The hospital is of course long gone now, replaced by a new housing estate. While the houses have escaped flooding in the recent rains, the adjacent dual carriageway - Bob Dunn Way - sits at a lower lever, and was closed for much of January because of flooding. The cause of the flooding? Heavy rain which would formerly have soaked into the flood plain can no longer do so because of the new housing estate, and so instead it runs onto the road.

Bob Dunn Way is a major arterial road linking Junction 1A of the M25 with access to South East London. The result, predictably, was gridlock across many local roads.

If you read the article, Nigel says the building on flood plains is a 'recipe for disaster'. He also mentions that he has been studying flood problems in the South East.

Needless to say, the Environment Agency approved the development at Joyce Green, helpfully redrawing their flood maps to show there was little risk of flooding. With the current heavy rain and the proximity of the already swollen river Thames, we can look forward to more travel chaos in Dartford over the coming few days. Would it be publicity seeking to say 'He told you so'?

About Me

An experienced freelance investigative journalist and currently President of the Chartered Institute of Journalists. Previously Head of Media for the Europe of Freedom & Democracy Group in the European Parliament, and before that Director of Communications for UKIP at Westminster. And much before all that, a naval officer.